Jemima: a Buckinghamshire emigrant in 1853

It is the diary of a young Buckinghamshire Milliner that forms the basis of this study. The diary of Jemima THAME, born in Twyford 26th August 1826 (1)  documents her journey to Australia in the summer of 1853. She travelled to Australia with her cousin Richard THAME, her friend and apprentice Mary Ann HITCHCOCK, Mary Ann’s parents, John and Sarah HITCHCOCK and Mary Ann’s two surviving younger sisters, Elizabeth and Jane.

In the census of 1851 Jemima is living in Bridge Street, Buckingham with her widowed father Thomas (a retired Publican) and Mary Ann HITCHCOCK, who was at this time a Milliner’s Apprentice (2). John HITCHCOCK and his family, in 1851, are living on their 160 acre farm in Tingewick(3). The HITCHCOCKS had been tenant farmers in the countryside of Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire for several generations (4), but by August 1851, the HITCHCOCK farm in Tingewick was being advertised as for ‘sale by auction’ in Jackson’s Oxford Journal (16 August 1851).

The Tingewick farm had not been a happy place for the HITCHCOCK family.  Between the years 1832 and 1850, John and Sarah HITCHCOCK had lost five of their eight children: the children all having perished by the time they were seven years old. Although the early 1850s was a prosperous time in England, it is possible the HITCHCOCK farm was struggling, and this enforced the sale. Following their misfortunes, the local newspaper advertisements for emigrants to the new worlds may have tempted the HITCHCOCKS to leave their homeland. Jemima’s cousin Richard THAME was possibly already romantically involved with Mary Ann HITCHCOCK (they married in Australia) and this may be a reason Richard chose to emigrate also.

Jemima’s diary states when they met in Liverpool to board the ship, Mary Ann’s face ‘glowed’ when she saw Richard. Richard in 1851 had been a Footman in a household in Farnborough, Kent (5).

Jemima’s reason for leaving is not revealed in the diary but she does state in her entry on 27th July 1853,

……Twelve months ago how happy I was, I shall never forget that day, it was Buckingham Flower Show Day and my home was full of mirth………what a contrast I found at my journey’s end, the family was just sitting down to prayers and invited me to join them, certainly there is a time for all things, will that time ever return for me…who would have believed that day that bitter disappointments and all success would have so far changed my prospects….

Whatever happened to Jemima or her family after the happy time at the Flower Show on 27th July 1852 may have prompted  reason for Jemima to emigrate. However, a search of the local newspaper of the time, the Bucks Herald, revealed that by 30th April 1853 Jemima’s millenary and dressmaking business in Buckingham had become insolvent, and it was there in the newspaper for all the townsfolk to read.

The Journey to Australia

Jemima and cousin Richard THAME and the HITCHCOCK family left Liverpool on the emigrant ship Star of the East on 7th July 1853. They arrived in Sydney on 4th October 1853. In her diary Jemima gives a day-by-day account of their journey. Copyright restrictions inhibit too much detail of the diary being revealed; however, Jemima does comment on the crowded conditions on board ship. She reveals her moments of regret at leaving and hopes her father does not pine too much for her. Thomas THAME died less than two years after she left so it seems Jemima never saw her father again (6). Jemima also comments on the characters she met on board ship, comparing the more amusing with folk she knew back home. However, some did not reach her own high standards

….I am sadly disappointed at the character of some of the people…..it is a most lamentable fact that the most agreeable and talented people are the most licentious and intemperate and with high endowment and good education it is deplored for temporal as well as spiritual reasons….

Jemima’s comments about the unpleasant aspects of the journey on the Star of the East are also reflected in a letter written to the Old Mersey Times, from a fellow passenger on the same voyage:

Star of the East

Letter to Old-Mersey Times 1854

Australia

Jemima may have left a romantic interest behind in Buckinghamshire. A James PARSONS arrived in Sydney in 1854 and on the 11th August that year put a notice in the Sydney Morning Herald, that read

If this should meet the eye of Miss Jemima Thame late of Twyford, she may hear of James Parsons of Brill. Address per letter to the Grafton Arms, George Street, Sydney.

James PARSONS spent several years in Australia but returned to England to claim his inheritance when his father died. It is not known if James and Jemima did meet in Sydney.

Jemima eventually married George Washford PAGE, a Grocer, on 6th June 1858 at St. Lawrence Church, Sydney (7). Jemima died, childless, just eighteen months later, on 11th December 1859: the main cause of death was ‘Phthisis’ or Tuberculosis (8).

London Stores, Blue’s Point, Sydney c1890: Former residence of Jemima

But what of the HITCHCOCK family? To discover their fortunes in their new country the online Birth, Death and Marriage Indexes of New South Wales were used as were the street directories of Sydney. The Australian Newspapers online via the National Library of Australia’s website were also searched. The occupations of this group of emigrants between the years 1853 and 1858 are not known. Sarah HITCHCOCK died in 1858 (9) and husband John in 1859 (10) both in Port Curtis, leaving their nine-year-old daughter Jane an orphan. Mary Ann HITCHCOCK married Richard THAME in 1854 in Willoughby, New South Wales (11). To trace their descendants and their fortunes the Australian Newspapers were used in addition to the NSW Birth, Marriage and Death Indexes. Jemima’s brother, also a Richard THAME, had followed his sister Jemima to Australia. He had married a Mary Ann WHITE in 1861 in Sydney, thus there were two sets of children with parents named Richard and Mary Ann THAME appearing on the NSW Birth Indexes between 1861 and 1877. Richard, Mary Ann HITCHCOCK’S husband, eventually called himself Richard Holt THAME, taking on his mother’s maiden surname HOLT to distinguish himself from Jemima’s brother Richard. Both families also resided in Sydney as local directories indicate.

Mary Ann HITCHCOCK and Richard Holt THAME

Richard and Mary Ann had six children, five of whom survived to adulthood (12). The 1867, 1869 and 1870 Editions of the Sydney and NSW, Sands Street Index indicate a Richard H THAME had a restaurant at 474 George Street, Sydney (13). Interestingly, in the 1870 Edition cousin Richard THAME (brother of Jemima) had a grocery business, Thame, Walker & Co. nearby.

By 1875 Richard H THAME was proprietor of the Flower Pot Hotel, York Street, Sydney (14). Richard Holt THAME born Barton Hartshorn, Bucks (15) died in Sydney in 1877. His passing was recorded in the Sydney Morning Herald.

In 1883, the Sands Directory lists a Mary Ann THAME as proprietor of the Flower Pot Hotel, York Street, Sydney. In 1887 a Mary Ann THAME was the proprietor of the Town Hall Hotel, St. John’s Road, Forest Lodge, Redfern, Sydney. This is the last known entry where a Mary Ann THAME is recorded as a Hotel Proprietor. Mary Ann died in 1912 in Ashfield (16).

Elizabeth HITCHCOCK and Walter POWELL

Walter and Elizabeth (Lita) had married in 1860 in Sydney.

They had three known children who were born in New South Wales (17). Walter POWELL, born 1831 in Oxfordshire was the son of an English cleric. His father, Walter P POWELL (18) had been an Archdeacon in Madras and also had a Chaplaincy serving the East India Company. Walter junior had become a sailor on leaving school. He had experienced a spell of ‘gold fever’ for a few months in Forest Creek, near Castlemaine but he eventually returned to the sea. Elizabeth, affectionately known to her family as Lita, died in 1873 (19) and her death was recorded in the Sydney Morning Herald. This entry indicates there were four children in the POWELL family but the birth reference for a fourth child has yet to be located.

Jane HITCHCOCK and Joseph BRIGNELL

Initial research had shown it was not certain what happened to Jane HITCHCOCK, orphaned at only nine years old. But after access to Sydney’s parish registers of the time became available online. what happened to Jane became apparent. Jane had married Joseph BRIGNELL in 1881. However, Jane had already borne four children, between 1873 and 1878, to Joseph before they married. Joseph’s first wife died on 4th February 1881, and he quickly married Jane just a week later. According to the Death Notice in the Sydney Morning Herald, it seems Joseph’s first wife had borne a long illness. Joseph and his first wife had five surviving children by 1881, the youngest just ten years old. After their marriage in 1881, Joseph BRIGNELL and Jane HITCHCPCK went on to have four more children, so the BRIGNELL family were quite a large household. Jane died in 1919 aged 69 years.

Summary

John and Sarah HITCHCOCK had just a few short years in Australia before they died. Jemima’s life new life in Australia was also cut short, just six years living there. As yet it is not known what their occupations were for those first few years in their new country. Elizabeth HITCHCOCK died tragically young, just 34 years old. It seems Jane may have had a difficult life waiting eight years or so to marry the father of her first four children. It was Mary Ann who reached the oldest age: 79 years when she died in 1912. Mary Ann perhaps, most of all her immediate family, embodied the pioneering spirit of her new country, carrying on her husband’s business after he died. However, through daughters Mary Ann, Elizabeth, Jane and their descendants, John and Sarah HITCHCOCK formerly of Tingewick, Buckinghamshire, by the early twentieth century, had over twenty great grandchildren living in Australia (20). Like their ancestors before them some of their fortunes were varied. Mary Ann HITCHCOCK’S son William John THAME, in 1890, had married his cousin Amy, the daughter of Elizabeth HITCHCOCK and Captain POWELL thus continuing the THAME and HITCHCOCK family connection. William’s brother Richard THAME died in a lorry accident in 1913 (21).  And Mary Ann’s daughter Sarah had two husbands and two sons, both sons perishing young: the most poignant Charles Rae MACINTOSH who died near Passchendaele in 1917 (22).

NOTES

  1. Parish Register of The Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Twyford: Baptisms 1826. Held at the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, Aylesbury
  2. 1851 Census, Buckingham. Ref: HO107/1724/f249/p33. . Available online: www.ancestry.co.uk Last accessed 24 January 2011
  3. 1851 Census Tingewick, Bucks. Ref: HO107/1724/f375/p28. Available online: www.ancestry.co.uk Last accessed 24 January 2011
  4. Watts, David & Bloxham, Christine (2009) Flora Thompson’s Country: The Real Villages and Towns of Lark Rise to Candelford. Witney; Robert Boyd Publications p 62
  5. 1851 Census Farnborough, Kent. Ref: HO107/1596/f86/p20. Available online: www.ancestry.co.uk Last accessed 24 January 2011
  6. Parish Register of The Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Twyford: Burials 1855. Held at the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, Aylesbury
  7. Marriage Certificate of Jemima THAME 1858. Ref: 1858/000446 held at NSW Register Office, Sydney
  8. Death Certificate of Jemima PAGE 1859. Ref: 1859/002093 held at NSW Register Office, Sydney
  9. New South Wales Death Index 1858. Available online: http://www.bdm.nsw.gov.au/familyHistory/searchHistoricalRecords.htm
  10. New South Wales Death Index 1859. Available online: http://www.bdm.nsw.gov.au/familyHistory/searchHistoricalRecords.htm
  11. New South Wales Marriage Index 1854. Available online: http://www.bdm.nsw.gov.au/familyHistory/searchHistoricalRecords.htm
  12. See Appendix 1
  13. See Appendix 2
  14. Ibid.
  15. 1841 Census Barton Hartshorn, Bucks. Ref: HO107/44/f5/p12. Available online: www.ancestry.co.uk  Last accessed 24 January 2011
  16. New South Wales Death Index 1912. Available online: http://www.bdm.nsw.gov.au/familyHistory/searchHistoricalRecords.htm
  17. See Appendix 1
  18. Morning Bulletin Rockhampton, Queensland: 28th December 1906, Available online: http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper Last accessed 24 January 2011
  19. New South Wales Death Index 1873. Available online: http://www.bdm.nsw.gov.au/familyHistory/searchHistoricalRecords.htm
  20. See Appendix 1
  21. Sydney Morning Herald 1913. Available online: http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper Last accessed 24 January 2011
  22. Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Available online: http://www.cwgc.org/  Last accessed 24 January 2011